Buzzword Bingo

I came across this article the other day about the slide into jargon that the military and so many Amercian businesses have gotten into. I think Mr. Marr has a point. In the article below-he mentions the worst offenders. Several drinking games come to mind seeing this list.

By Bernard Marr

 

 

I reckon every office or workplace has one of those people that are just

full of jargon-ridden management drivel. Does this kind of 'management

speak' remind you of someone at your work place: "Before going forward we

have to touch base and reach out to our key stakeholders so that we can

drill down into the key issues that are not yet on our radar and catch the

low-hanging fruits…"

 

Are you surrounded by people who annoyingly can't get enough of the

management gobbledygook and who utter one jargon buzzword after another? Are

your meetings buzzing with so much management lingo that you find it hard to

get to the real meaning of what is being said? The problem I have with these

phrases is that they sound so pretentious and often are counter-productive

because they irritate people so much and deflect from the real meaning.

 

Below are my top 30 most irritating and overused phrases we hear at work. I

am sure you have others that you can add to this list. Let's make it the

most comprehensive list of unnecessary management drivel ever – Please add

your ones using the comment field!

 

For me, these are my top 30 most irritating jargon phrases and words used at

work:

 1.Going forward

 2.Drill-down

 3.End of play

 4.Touch base

 5.It's on my radar

 6.No brainer

 7.Best of breed

 8.Low hanging fruit

 9.Reach out

 10.Dive deeper

 11.Think outside the box

 12.Positive momentum

 13.Execute

 14.Milestones

 15.Run the numbers

 16.Touch points

 17.Keep your eye on the ball

 18.Back to the drawing board

 19.Get the ball rolling

 20.Bang for your buck

 21.Close the deal

 22.Leverage

 23.Shift paradigm

 24.Move the needle

 25.Game-changing

 26.Move the goal post

 27.Value added

 28.Win-win

 29.Across the piece

 30.All hands on deck

 

What do you think? Do you agree? Are these the most irritating phrases?

Please let me know which ones you would add to this list!

 

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Bernard Marr is a best-selling business author and enterprise performance

expert. Make sure you click 'Follow' if you would like to hear more from

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